Preattentive and Attentive Visual Information Processing

93119356 Egeth这个项目旨在研究注意选择性的时间和空间方面。在空间领域，本研究旨在阐明前注意过程和焦点注意过程在任务执行中的合作关系。在时间域，重点是在无信息提示下的早期促进和后期抑制，目的是澄清加工是视网膜中心的、环境为基础的、物体为基础的还是物体为中心的。第一组被提议的实验旨在确定受试者在复杂的显示器中寻找相关信息时避免分散注意力的材料的效率。现有的工作导致了这些任务中表现的相互矛盾的理论解释；拟议的研究应该有助于在这些相互竞争的选择中做出决定。第二组实验探索线索（例如，昏暗的灯光短暂变亮）将注意力引向特定位置的后果。这种提示提高了在提示位置检测目标的能力。然而，令人惊讶的是，这种改善是短暂的（大约1/2秒），随后是更持久的性能下降。提出的实验是为了解释导致这种性能下降的因素。除了理论意义之外，这两组实验在实验室之外的世界也有意义。这种工作与工作场所的许多环境有关，并可能导致发现减少注意力不集中有时造成的灾难性后果的方法。＊＊＊＊

93119356 Egeth This project is designed to examine the temporal and spatial aspects of attentional selectivity. In the spatial domain, the research is designed to clarify how preattentive and focal attentive processes cooperate in the performance of tasks. In the temporal domain, the focus is on early facilitation and later inhibition following an uninformative cue, with a goal of clarifying when processing is retinocentric, environmentally based, object based, or object centered. The first set of proposed experiments is designed to determine the efficiency with which subjects can avoid distracting material as they search through complicated displays looking for relevant information. Existing work has led to conflicting theoretical explanations of performance in such tasks; and the proposed research should help decide among these competing alternatives. A second set of experiments explores the aftermath of a cue (e.g., the brief brightening of a dim light) that directs attention to a specific location. Such a cue improves the ability to detect targets presented at the cued location. However, what is surprising is that such improvement is short-lived (about 1/2 sec), and is followed by a longer lasting performance decrement. The proposed experiments are an effort to explain the factors that cause this performance decrement. In addition to their theoretical significance, both sets of experiments have significance in the world outside the laboratory. Such work is pertinent to many settings in the work place and may lead to the discovery of methods to reduce the sometimes catastrophic consequences of a failure to pay attention. ****